Adventures in the Later Roman Empire

17 July 2009

Digging at the Villa delle Vignacce

Nice piece in the LA Times about the state of archaeology versus preservation in Rome. Susan Spano covers a number of sites, but focuses on the Villa delle Vignacce, formerly owned by Quintus Servilius Pudens.

It is unclear whether the multistory bathhouse, with its intact Roman saunas, was part of a private villa or a public complex.

In either case, the site calls into question long-held concepts about the configuration of Imperial Rome.

"To find an urban-style bathhouse in suburban Rome is striking," said Darius Arya, the institute's director.

Lacking funds to preserve the dig last winter, Arya summoned an
earth mover to cover it, obscuring the hard evidence of the discovery.

Before doing so, however, he enlisted Gabriele Guidi, an associate
professor at Milan Polytechnic, to document the site. Using advanced
laser technology, they assembled a virtually enhanced plan of the
bathing complex.

That's good news for scholars, but of scant interest to tourists.
Arya said that shoring up the site, encircling it with a semi-permanent
fence and building roof structures to protect it from the elements
during the digging off-season, which usually lasts from October to
April, would have cost more than $500,000.

In 2006 and 2007, excavation work at Villa delle Vignacce was underwritten first by the American Express Foundation, then by private donors. Last fall, Arya hoped for support
from Rome to keep the site open, but city money did not materialize,
and private funding has dwindled in the wake of the global economic
meltdown.